Christopher Michno profiles painter Liat Yossifor whose exhibition Eight Movements is on view at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe Gallery, New York through April 18, 2015. Michno writes: "Yossifor’s gray paintings are most easily identifiable in connection with AbEx and the New York School. She advances the idea that as she makes large gestural sweeps
John Yau reviews Steve DiBenedetto: Mile High Psychiatry continues at Derek Eller Gallery, New York, on view through April 18, 2015. Yau writes: "In an age of signature gestures and stylistic branding, artists who change and, more importantly, are able to expand the possibilities of their work are few and far between. The most obvious
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Rick Briggs. Briggs comments: "Basically, I'm always working out of personal need and want my work to reflect my life. This has been true of my abstract work as well as the representational work. Previously with the Painter Man series, I worked in a narrative way because I needed to tell
Helen O'Leary interviews painter Diana Copperwhite on the occasion of her show A Million and One Things Under the Sun at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, on view through April 25, 2015. Copperwhite comments: "I love the large scale of paintings, they make me feel like a director of my own movie. Its also a way
Franklin Einspruch interviews painter Walter Darby Bannard on the occasion of an exhibition of Bannard's Minimal Color Field Paintings, 1958-1965 at Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, through April 18, 2015. Bannard comments on the period of his work in the show, noting that his interest was in "[s]implicity that’s not Cubist-derived. Mondrian is Cubist-derived, and
Sara Roffino reviews a recent show of paintings by Peter Williams at Novella Gallery, New York. Roffino writes: "If one were to glance briefly at Williams’s works, the bright palette and carnivalesque scenes might belie the violence depicted. And, even after spending time with the paintings, processing that violence and thinking about the very real
Rob Colvin reviews Vera Iliatova: For Now, At Once at Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, on view through April 12, 2015. Colvin writes: "New to the artist’s work is the appropriation of the still life as a foreground element to the background landscape. This is a motif drawn most explicitly from Jane Freilicher ... In
Janet McKenzie reviews the new book Painting Now by Suzanne Hudson, published by Thames and Hudson. McKenzie writes that "Hudson’s text is a vital argument for the importance of painting, and she explores the manner in which the vast field can be reapproached, challenged and reimagined with great alacrity... The chapters enable a critical thread
Andy Parkinson blogs about the exhibition Contemporary British Abstraction at SE9 Container Gallery, Eltham, on view through April 11, 2015. The show, curated by artists Matthew Macaulay and Terry Greene, features work by: David Ainley, Ralph Anderson, Dominic Beattie, Chris Baker, Andrew Bick, Katrina Blannin, Claudia Boese, Julian Brown, EC, Ben Cove, Clem Crosby, Pen
Jason Ramos reviews Annelie McKenzie: The Enthusiast at CB 1 Gallery, Los Angeles on view through April 11, 2015. Ramos writes: "As McKenzie herself puts it, an explanatory metaphor for her paintings is that they are cover songs. The cover song description ... offers more conceptual clues and implies the proclivities of the artist herself.
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of artist Donald Baechler. Baechler comments: "I don't see [the work] as happy or upbeat... I think of [the objects in the paintings] as very isolated... the isolated ice cream cone, for me it's a kind of melancholy thing, it's not really a happy thing. In some
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition The Painter of Modern Life, organized by Bob Nickas at Anton Kern, New York, on view through April 11, 2015. The show includes work by Nathaniel Axel, Lisa Beck, Sadie Benning, Sascha Braunig, Alex Brown, Mathew Cerletty, Wayne Gonzales, Joanne Greenbaum, Daniel Hesidence, Mamie Holst, Cannon Hudson, Chip Hughes,
Lara Saget interviews artist Cordy Ryman whose exhibition Chimera 45 is on view at Zürcher Gallery, New York through May 7, 2015. Ryman comments: "I think anything and everything that is going on in your life, if you are open in your process, will make its way in and have an effect. I think we
Jennifer Riley reviews Russell Roberts: Paper Bed, Concrete Head at Heskin Contemporary, New York, on view through April 18, 2015. Riley writes: "In these complex paintings, rich in complex spatial propositions, the main white and blue areas evoke Matissian plays of figure and ground, while within the smaller white or blue areas Roberts complicates foreground
Tim Keane reviews Elaine de Kooning: Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., on view through January 10, 2016. Keane writes that "the show offers uninitiated visitors a chance to discover an American artist who redirected techniques of twentieth-century vanguard painting into a form of portraiture that is as much about the rhythms and
Anne Harris writes about painting and metaphor. Harris recalls: "I had a break-through in my painting when I began thinking metaphorically. It started with a vein in a forehead, then the realization that everything could be vascular. So tendrils of hair became capillary, as did tendrils of light, stripes in a shirt were arterial, a
Phong Bui interviews painter Glenn Goldberg whose exhibition All Day is on view at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, through April 4, 2015. Goldberg comments: "I think the body has its own needs. Although painters essentially paint with their eyes and their hands, their bodies have to participate in locating elements. And things aren’t always
Larry Groff interviews painter Langdon Quin whose exhibition of recent paintings is on view at The Painting Center, New York through April 25, 2015. Quin comments: "... in my day-to-day experience, the landscape seems to intrude most and calls out more for its recognition and observation. Whenever I make a painting of any kind, whether
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Craig Taylor: Enface at CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles, on view through April 11, 2015. Butler writes: "Craig Taylor empties traditional portrait bust forms of facial detail and fills the silhouettes with strata of small marks and brushstrokes. The effect is to make visible the unarticulated anxiety behind our carefully
Steven Alexander blogs about Clare Grill: Touch’d Lustre at Zieher Smith & Horton, New York, on view through April 25, 2015. Alexander writes: "These paintings dive head first into the history of great painting -- the all-over space of Pollock, the shape-making of Gorky and Kandinsky, the playfulness of Klee -- and emerge looking utterly